Quotes: Bureaucracy, Bureaucrats, Part 1

(situation in which less and less is done by more and more officials; government agency where after all is said and done, more is said than done)

bureaucracy
1. Administration of a government chiefly through bureaus or departments staffed with nonelected officials.
2. Departments and their officials as a group.
3. Management or administration marked by hierarchical authority among numerous offices and by fixed procedures.
4. The administrative structure of a large or complex organization; such as, a midlevel manager in a corporate bureaucracy.
5. An administrative system in which the need or inclination to follow rigid or complex procedures impedes effective action; for example, innovative ideas that get bogged down in red tape and bureaucracy.
bureaucrat
1. An official who, too often, works by a fixed routine without exercising intelligent judgment.
2. Usually a government official who is rigidly devoted to the details of administrative procedures rather than to executing practical applications.
bureaucratic, bureaucratism
1. Government by officials collectively.
2. Rule by “desks” or government officials who "govern the desks".

The actual work of government is too unglamorous for the people who govern us to do. Important elected officeholders and high appointed officials create bureaucratic departments to perform the humdrum tasks of national supervision.

Government proposes, bureaucracy disposes; and the bureaucracy must dispose of government proposals by dumping them on us.

From a Parliment of Whores by P.J. O’Rourke;
The Atlantic Monthly Press; New York; 1991; page 85.

Quotations

It is highly improbable that the bureaucrat will put his life on the line. It is absolutely impossible that he’ll put his job on the line.
—Eduardo Galeano, Omni

Bureaucrats write memoranda both because they appear to be busy when they are writing and because the memos, once written, immediately become proof that they were busy.
—Charles Peters

Hell hath no fury like a bureaucrat scorned.
—Milton Friedman

We hang the petty thieves and appoint the great ones to public office.
—Aesop

A government which robs Peter to pay Paul can always depend on the support of Paul.
—George Bernard Shaw

Foreign aid might be defined as a transfer from poor people in rich countries to rich people in poor countries. [How true, how true!]
—Douglas Casey

Giving money and power to government is like giving whiskey and car keys to teenage boys.
—P. J. O’Rourke

Be thankful we’re not getting all the government we’re paying for.
—Will Rogers

The only thing that saves us from the bureaucracy is inefficiency. An efficient bureaucracy is the greatest threat to liberrty.
—Eugene McCarthy

The only difference between a taxman and a taxidermist is that the taxidermist leaves the skin.
—Mark Twain

We contend that for a nation to try to tax itself into prosperity is like a man standing in a bucket and trying to lift himself up by the handle.
—Winston Churchill

What this country needs are more unemployed politicians.
—Edward Langley

The political and commercial morals of the United States are not merely food for laughter; they are an entire banquet.
—Mark Twain

I believe there’s something out there watching over us. Unfortunately, it’s the government.
—Woody Allen

Can any of you seriously say the Bill of Rights could get through Congress today? It wouldn’t even get out of commitee.
—F. Lee Bailey, attorney

An honest politician is one who, when he is bought, will stay bought.
—Simon Cameron

Never underestimate the power of very stupid people in large groups.
—John Kenneth Galbraith


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